Even though the identification of the murderous rapist is something of a letdown, you’ll ache for Frieda as she tears open...
Psychotherapist Frieda Klein’s fourth case is a lot more personal than she’d like, in all the worst ways.
Though they were never friends back at Braxton High School, Madeleine Capel knows all about Frieda’s celebrity (Waiting for Wednesday, 2014, etc.), and she wants her to have a chat with her 15-year-old, Becky, find out why she’s suddenly so withdrawn, and straighten her out. Becky’s not eager to talk to Frieda, but during a second session, she reveals that she’s been raped by an unidentifiable man who told her, “Don’t think of telling anyone, sweetheart. No one will believe you.” The revelation is just as shattering to Frieda as it is to Becky, for 23 years ago, when she was about Becky’s age, Frieda was raped herself by a man who parted from her with the very same words before a desultory investigation by the Braxton police led to the arrest of a man who died years ago in prison. What to do? Frieda begins by telling the friends she thinks most need to know—her builder buddy, Josef; her old analyst, Reuben; her lover in America, Sandy—about her own long-buried secret. Reuben is astonished and pained that she never said anything about this painful episode before, and Sandy’s reaction is, to put it mildly, disconcerting. Determined that the man who raped both Becky and herself be brought to justice, Frieda urges Becky to go to the police. Becky reluctantly agrees, but before she can act on her newfound resolve, her mother finds her hanging from her bedroom ceiling. Stung by Maddie’s furious accusations about her part in the death of her daughter, Frieda returns to Braxton to reopen her own case—and runs smack into a tsunami of new suspicions and rejections among the people she once thought were her friends.
Even though the identification of the murderous rapist is something of a letdown, you’ll ache for Frieda as she tears open old wounds and cheer when she finally shows signs of healing from her lacerations.Pub Date: March 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312721-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
Furiously suspenseful, but brain-dead second volume in Child’s gratuitously derivative Jack Reacher action series (Killing Floor, 1997). Reacher, a former Army Military Police Major, has now moved on to Chicago, where he gallantly assists a beautiful mystery woman hobbling on a crutch with her dry cleaning. Seconds later, Reacher and the woman, FBI agent Holly Johnson (also daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as goddaughter of the President), are kidnaped by armed gunmen. Handcuffed together and tossed in the back of a van, the two are taken to the Montana mountain stronghold of Beau Borken, a fat, ugly, psychopathically vicious neo-Nazi militia leader given to sawing the arms off day laborers and making windy speeches about how he brilliant he is. Of course, the kidnappers don’t know that they have a former military police major in their clutches who, in addition to having a Silver Star for heroism, is one of the best snipers the Army has ever produced, can pull iron rings out of barn doors, and kill bad guys with lit cigarettes. Meanwhile, a team of FBI agents, at least one of whom is a mole leaking information to Borken, identify Reacher from a reconstructed photo taken from the dry cleaner’s surveillance camera. Borken, impressed with Reacher’s military record, lectures him about his brilliant plan to overthrow the US using a hijacked Army missile unit, with Holly held as a hostage in a specially constructed, dynamite-lined prison cell. Borken stupidly lets Reacher best him in a shooting match, then grandiosely turns his back on his captives enough times for Reacher and Holly to escape, cause havoc, get captured, escape, make love in the woods, cause more havoc, and get captured again, as General Johnson, FBI Director Harlan Webster, and General Garber, Reacher’s former commander, plan a covert strike on Borken’s fortress that’s certain to fail. Another Rogue Warrior meets Die Hard with all the typical over-the-top plotting, blood-splattering ultraviolence, lock-jawed heroics and the dumbest villains this side of Ruby Ridge.
Pub Date: July 20, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14379-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
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